Two make one: LAIVA reloaded

Description: We bought IKEA’s LAIVA shelving unit for our kitchen, but found that in its present form it had several flaws:

Firstly, the height of each compartment meant that a lot of space would go unused.

Secondly, by default, two of the four compartments come without a back panel. If you can’t position the shelf directly against a wall, there’s always the risk of things being pushed off the back.

To fix these two issues, we bought a second LAIVA shelving unit.

We then used the shelves of the second pack to divide each compartment into two. Instead of measuring the exact half, we decided (for purely aesthetic reasons) that the additional shelves should line up with the horizontal stripes of the back panel, so one compartment is always slightly larger than the other, but just barely so.

We then attached the remaining back panels to close the gaps. Our LAIVA hack now offers the perfect storage for all our day-to-day crockery.

We used the bits and pieces included by IKEA; the only extra tool we needed was a drill for the additional holes.

It would be interesting to read if IKEA hackers out there came up with ideas for the two left-over side pieces of the second pack which we didn’t use.

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Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

if putting smaller things on the shelves than plates and such (like the glasses up top on yours), some of the extra wood could make good side rails to stop things falling out the open sides. either short piece horizontally at each shelf (more work, but more open looking), or an additional vertical would work.

For the leftovers – You could cut the legs to make a nice rectangle then attach to the wall as a picture frame or to tack children drawings to it. Attach knobs and you have a nice entrance coats hanger.But the best way is to cut it to strips (separate the legs) that you can use to block the side. You blocked the back so things will not fall off – the same problem (even more so) is with the sides.

Absolutely brilliant. I am looking for something very similar for cheap. Could you please post more close up pictures on how you added those extra shelves. Did you use ‘L’ or just screwed it in the frame. If possible, please post picture of back panel addition too. I am not very handy so taking a look at close up pictures will help me figure out how you did it. Thanks in advance.

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